Studying Planet Formation with Machine Learning

• Project in Chile
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• Project Proposal:

  Protoplanetary disks are dust and gas filled disks surrounding newly formed stars where planetary formation occurs. Understanding the dynamic processes in the disks which lead to planetary formation is crucial to explaining how the Earth and our solar system came to be. Astronomers study disks by imaging them in various wavelengths with millimeter-range telescopes, the best of which is the Atacama Large Millimeter and submillimeter Array (ALMA), in Chile. I propose to study these disks with the guidance of Dr. Laura Perez, an astronomer and protoplanetary disk specialist at Universidad de Chile in Santiago. In Chile, I plan to learn how ALMA images are processed and will analyze them with Dr. Perez and her team. To better understand the dynamic processes tied to planetary formation in the disks, we will apply classical methods such as power law fitting to determine the spectral index emission and a new method using a Rice University developed machine learning toolbox called Neuroscope. The project will be done in collaboration with Dr. Andrea Isella, a collaborator of Dr. Perez’s and a protoplanetary disk specialist at Rice who has worked with Neuroscope and Dr. Erzsebet Merenyi, leader of the group which developed Neuroscope..

   

• Proposal:

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